The Awkward Moment When One's Pianist Has Shingles
by cynic.in.a.fishbowl
Summary: In which Dominique goes to a Muggle university, meets people, and is inconvenienced by those around her contracting diseases.
1. Chapter 1

Hullo all. This us a fic, the idea for which began is I was writing some head canon on one of my tumblogs: cynicinafishbowl . tumblr . com

Remove the spaces.

And enjoy.

Dominique was running late.

This was less than ideal when the fact that she really needed to rehearse with a pianist before her performance assessment the next day was taken into account. It was one of the moments when she asked herself why she hadn't listened to her aunt Caitlin's entreaties not to under any circumstance study music at university because she would end up hating her life. And there she had been thinking that Caitlin was just being adorably muggle again. After all, she had also said not to study pure maths under any circumstance, but Dominique was having a ball.

It was just the wretched bi-monthly performance assessments which bugged her. After all, all the other kids could toddle off on their own, learn a piece, perform and be happy. But she, as a singer, had to learn a piece, find an accompanist who was available (apparently they didn't do standing arrangements... bastards), make sure they had the music at least two weeks ahead (which was an issue because that necessitated her knowing what she'd be singing two weeks in advance), perform, pay them, and immediately begin stressing about the next performance assessment.

She was heading to the music building where she had booked one of the soundproofed performance rooms (the girls sharing her college had made it clear that whilst she was a delightful singer, there was only so much Rossini one could take at seven in the morning), but if she wasn't there within five minutes, it went back on the market. And rooms never stayed available for long.

As it was, she had seven minutes to make it the three hundred metres and four flights of stairs to the room, but she was cutting it fine. That was why when her phone vibrated with a text message, she pulled it out as she continued to powerstride through the quad, dodging people as she went, and read as she walked, simultaneously making an exceedingly rude hand gesture at the socialists whose protest blocked her path.

By the time she'd opened the message, she was free of the unwashed leftist mass (she had nothing against socialism per se – merely the students who practised it at university), which was lucky, because upon reading it, she stopped dead in her tracks, and let off a string of profanities she had picked up off of her numerous elder relatives, but had never had cause to use.

Because the message read as follows:

Dominique,

Have shingles, cannot play.

Sorry

Violet.

Violet Evans was a twenty-six year old concert pianist, who after carpal tunnel surgery had been getting herself back up to scratch. She'd been Dominique's regular accompanist for the past two months, and had even been charging half rate since she remembered her days as a music student, and all the stress involved without even having a combined degree or the need to work in order to pay for pianists. And now, Vi had shingles.

Fan(expletiving)tastic. And then someone collided with her from behind, causing her to fall forward and (more irritatingly in the short run) drop her music. Suffice to say there was Verdi everywhere.

The person who had collided with her began apologising profusely, and offered a hand to help her up. Dominique took the proffered appendage, and promptly reiterated her earlier onscenities when pressure was applied to her hand, which she had clearly damaged in some fashion as she fell. It wasn't an issue, she could fix it herself once she was somewhere secluded, but it was an annoyance. Because it was making her later. Luckily for her, the guy she had collided with was picking up the fallen sheet music, because the library employees at Oxford made Madam Pince look like a fluffy bunny. Dominique took the time to get up without aggravating her damaged hand, and almost collided with the guys again.

"I'm so sorry about that." Said the young man, who was of Yorkshire descent. "We need to get you to campus medical."

"Thankyou but no." Said Dominique, reaching for her music, all too aware of the fact that her window of booking was shrinking.

"I'm sorry but yes." Disagreed Yorkshire boy. "Your wrist is at the very least sprained, and judging by the colour it's turning I'd venture to guess that it's broken, and more importantly, I have your music. And I don't think you're going anywhere without it."

Blast it. He was a clever bugger. Dominique decided to use what Victoire tended to refer to as her 'feminine wiles'. She batted her eyelids and looked all sweet and adorable for a moment, before cutting to an almost whisper coupled with a death glare.

"Listen. I have three minutes to claim my rehearsal room before my booking becomes void, I have a performance assessment tomorrow, and my pianist just told me she has shingles and can't come. Now please give me my music."

Yorkshire boy merely smirked, relieved her of her bookbag, which contained a not small amount of maths book, and enquired as to whether he would have to call in one of his friends in order to carry her there against her will. Dominique noticed said friends standing a little while away, decided she didn't want to take her chances, gritted her teeth and said she would go willingly.

They were halfway there when Yorkshire boy spoke again. "Do you have a backup accompanist?"

Dominique glared at him momentarily. "Who organises backup accompanist?"

"What's the piece?" He asked, already leafing through the music.

"The one with all the post-it notes sticking out of it." She responded a touch testily. In her defence, her wrist was getting really painful.

Yorkshire boy looked at it for a moment, then shrugged and said that he could play it. Dominique stopped in her tracks. "Seriously?"

"Seriously. You know Simon, the delightful gay kid who organises the rehearsal room bookings with the efficiency of a communist dictator?"

"The counter tenor?" Dominique had run into him a couple of times in the music library, but had always been too busy with coursework to strike up a real conversation.

"Yeah. He's one of my friends from school. If you want, after you've been all fixed up I can get him to find us a piano and I'll show you that I can play it."

"You'd do that?"

"Why not?"

"Let's think... because we met a couple of minutes ago via a forceful collision and we don't even know each other's names?"

"Jamie Phillips. And I would shake your hand, but I don't know what's wrong with it and won't risk it."

Dominique smiled slightly. "Dominique Weasley."


	2. Chapter 2

NB: I'm basing the medical centre on that at University of Sydney's Camperdown Campus, where I've had many a ridiculous injury patched up. Like that time I impaled my foot on broken glass whilst wading through a fountain with my friends.

Furthermore, it should be noted that any discrepancies between that which I describe and actual dorm rooms at Oxford stem from the fact that I'm basing my descriptions off those in Evelyn Waugh's _Brideshead Revisited_. Which is set in the late '20s.

Also, you'll find that I've jacked the majority of the male personalities from Alan Bennett's _The History Boys._

Eventually, they arrived at the campus medical centre. Unfortunately, the warm fuzzy feeling conjured by Jamie getting the door for her was more or less dispelled by the realisation that it was Intern Day. Because when it came to university medical centres, no queue means that the infirm were being used as a proving ground for the med students.

Jamie noticed, and promptly apologised for injuring her on Intern Day. By then, Dominique was in too much pain to really think of a reply, so she made her presence known to the receptionist and sank into one of the horrible plastic chairs, only to be called by an intern who looked to be about twelve.

"If I end up with all the bones somehow removed from my wrist, or anything along those lines, I will hunt you down and eat your soul." Muttered Dominique.

"I'm sure that won't happen..." replied Jamie, not entirely sure he would be able to back up his assurance.

"Hi, I'm Jeremy." Said the intern. "What's the issue?"

Dominique glanced around the room to ensure there was a supervising doctor in the room before she answered. There was, and so instead of insisting someone get her to the nearest hospital, she did. "I fell, and did something nasty to my wrist." She held up the offending limb.

Jeremy the intern looked somewhat horrified, and cringed slightly. Dominique followed his line of sight. It did indeed look bad. "That's going to need all kinds of X-rays. Get yourself to the nearest hospital."

_Thanks, intern guy_. Thought Dominique as she glared at him for a moment before exiting the room to see Jamie, playing air piano. He looked up. "That was quick."

"I need to hie myself to the nearest hospital for X-rays, so thanks for everything, but I can take it from here." If she could shed this concerningly chivalrous muggle, she could fix her wrist herself in a moment.

"Nice try, but I'm holding your music hostage until you've seen a medical professional."

"Fascist."

"Call it what you will. I prefer the term 'chivalry'. Either way, one of the boys is in the midst of trying to get a nurse to go out with him, and thus is willing to give us a ride to the hospital."

Damn his preparedness to Hades. Damn it along with his delightful jawline and nice hair. Attractive bastard. Dominique could tell the pain was getting to her, because her brain, which hadn't said anything even remotely similar to 'ooh, cute guy' in her seven years of high school or year and a half of university was now appreciating the bone structure of the guy who had helped to destroy what would have been a peaceful afternoon spent in a soundproofed room, singing. So she nodded and trudged after him.

Stuart, the one with the car attempting to get into the pants of the nurse, spent the majority of the ten minute trip commenting on the fact that Jamie, coming from a family of four sisters, had a propensity to find damsels in distress, and then hold their possessions hostage until they were set to rights. Dominique made use of the distraction to cast a numbing charm on her wrist, and the pain subsided to an intense throb, as opposed to feeling like an arsonists' voodoo doll.

Once in emergency, Dominique got into the line for triage, and couldn't help looking around, fascinated. This was her first time in a muggle hospital, and she was struck by how much it resembled St Mungos... with the exception of the patients, whose ills were far more pedestrian. There was nary a stray tentacle to be seen. Dominique made a mental note to mention it in her next letter home. She also texted her aunt Caitlin, asking for instructions as to what she was supposed to do in a muggle hospital. Luckily for her, the line was long, so she had time to wait for a reply.

Mini – go through triage, wait for them to take you for x-rays. Then, depending on the damage they'll either splint you up or put you in a cast. After that, you're good to go.

C

p.s. is he cute?

Dominique was halfway through texting a reply when she received a call from her father. She steeled herself before pressing talk.

"Dominique Weasley, why are you in an emergency room with a broken wrist? With a boy? Who caused the injury in the first place?"

Dominique rolled her eyes. Bill was a mite overprotective at times. "I was going to go fix it myself, but said boy had my sheet music hostage and wouldn't give it back until I'd received proper medical attention. He's still got it hostage. Ordinarily I would have just tried my luck, but Vi just cancelled because she has shingles, and he said he'd fill in for tomorrow, so at a certain point I'm well willing to go to a muggle hospital and have my wrist put in plaster if it means I'll have an accompanist for tomorrow."

Bill sighed. "Do what you must. Just... try to keep your injuries to a minimum." There was a muffled scuffling sound on the other end of the line. Dominique could only assume that her mother was wrestling use of the phone from her father.

"Mini, are you alright? What's going on?" whereas Bill was overprotective, Fleur tended to be more laissez faire... until someone got injured, in which case Mama bear would surface.

"I'm fine. I'm just going through this whole rigmarole so that I have an accompanist tomorrow."

"Seriously?"

"Incredibly."

"As long as you're sure, Cherie. I'll see you on the weekend."

Goodbyes were said, and Dominique rested her head against the wall behind her. She was in far too much pain to be explaining her actions to her parents. Then she went back to texting her reply.

C – very much so. And he purports to play the piano, so here's hoping.

How long will the wait be?

Mini

The reply was disheartening.

Unless you're bleeding copiously, it'll be a while. They'll get to you eventually.

Stay groovy :)

C

Jamie put away the sheet music he'd been looking at and turned to face her. "So I see you're studying pure maths as well as music. That must make for an interesting course load."

"It really is. I've always loved maths, and music is basically just maths with noise attached. Of course it's also what keeps me sane, seeing as I'm the only girl studying pure maths, and the guys all seem afraid to talk to me. Which makes groupwork assignments well awkward."

"They have groupwork in pure maths?"

"It seems pointless, and it kind of is, but there's a groupwork component to every degree, and so we work through it."

A nurse called Dominique's name and she followed her to an X-ray room. Dominique found the whole process fascinating. She lay down on the bed, was draped with lead, and was bombarded with short wave radiation for a moment. That was going in her next letter to Rose. Rose loved muggle technology. And she could tell grandpa Arthur when she saw him on the weekend. He would have loved the hospital experience.

The technician told her to go back to the waiting room, and so she did, where she found Jamie looking at one of her maths textbooks with a puzzled expression. He was rather attractive, if one was in to the whole 'nice bone structure, decent musculature, sexy voice with northern accent' kind of thing.

Dominique couldn't figure out where all these thoughts were coming from, but resolved to ask Victoire as soon as she could. Victoire had a lot more experience when it came to boys.

Jamie looked up as she sat down before returning to the textbook. "How are you holding up?"

"Fine. It's painful, but other than that..." Dominique spent a moment watching one of the televisions in the waiting room before realising that it was playing Eastenders, and gave up on it. "Why do you feel compelled to keep me company?" she asked, genuinely curious.

"Because you're one of those crazy music kids who will forego anything in order to make t to a prebooked rehearsal room. And since you're a singer, you wouldn't need your hand, and then you'd get preoccupied, and it would be three days later when you finally went to the hospital, by which point the damage would have gotten a hell of a lot worse. And I have a feeling that if I were to leave now, you too would leave in the vague hope of being able to rehearse before tomorrow, and then it would be three days later when you came back to the hospital, and I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this."

He was right, except for the fact that if she had her way, she wouldn't ever go to the hospital. Oh well. He was bloody perceptive. "You were serious when you said you could play it?" she asked, changing the subject.

"You don't necessarily have to study music to have musical ability. I toyed with the notion of music for a while, and then just did the enjoyable thing and chose history. I started playing piano when I was three, and I've been playing for the past eighteen years."

"You're a third year?"

"That I am. I'm going to assume you're a first or second year, because you haven't been around long enough to know that you can coerce Simon into giving you a room booking if you turn up with a ten pack of anything herbal and Twinings."

That little tidbit would come in handy. "I'm second year. That's why all my textbooks are so small."

Jamie held up a two kilogram terror which was in fact the smallest textbook Dominique used. "This is small?"

Dominique snorted. "You should have seen the ones we used in first year. I swear they were only that huge in order to scare off the weak, but they were about twice the size."

Jamie looked slightly horrified, and went back to leafing through the sheet music. He was in the midst of commenting on the excess of Verdi (she was going through a phase) when a doctor called Dominique's name, and she learned what it feels like to have one's bones set. The doctor said 'get ready for a sharp pain'. The doctor did not say 'get ready to feel your bones grating about as I attempt to force them back into their original positions.' Which is what happened. Much to Dominique's shock. As a result, she may have inadvertently grabbed the nearest thing to her functioning hand, that being Jamie's hand, and squeezed it as tightly as her hand muscles would allow, in a desperate attempt not to start crying. Holy shit, it was painful.

As it was, a few tears leaked out, thus prompting Jamie to hand her a tissue from one of the numerous boxes situated about the room. In a couple of minutes, her wrist was in a cast (A CAST – how embarrassing), and the doctor handed her a bunch of painkillers.

"No thanks." Said Dominique, handing them back.

"You'll disagree in the morning." Was the reply.

Dominique smiled. "You don't understand. I'm an opera student, I have an assessment tomorrow, and painkillers mess with my voice. I'll pass."

The doctor mumbled something about crazy university students and then released her into the now evening. She and Jamie hopped on a bus which took them back to the university, at which point he made good on his promise to get her a rehearsal room. As it was, she could have done it herself – the cast was working wonders in the sympathy stakes, with the delightfully gay Simon insisting he be the first to sign her cast, and doing a pretty darn good job of it, covering a good half of it with drawings of flowers. Dominique thought it best not to enquire as to why he had a collection of about twenty differently coloured permanent markers upon his person.

It was only once they were in the room that Dominique noticed something she'd always suspected, but had never really been able to confirm – playing the piano made guys seem pretty gosh darn hot. Although that was probably just her pain addled brain talking. Oh god she hoped it was her pain addled brain talking. She didn't have time for what seemed to be the first time she ever had feelings for... well... anyone. She was in university, for heaven's sake, studying what was arguably the two hardest courses on offer. This _crush_ would have to wait. Or go away. Or something.

Her internal monologue was interrupted by the delightful Jamie (now there were epithets?) pointing out that she'd missed her entry. Damn it, Dominique needed time to think.

"What say we agree that I'm plenty able to play the piece, you tell me what time I need to be at what place, and what I need to be wearing, and then I walk you to your dorm?"

He had a point. "Meet me at ten outside the Con. There's no real dress code as such, but everyone tends to keep it smart casual. Thank you so much for doing this." She picked up her cardigan, bag and sheet music, thanking heaven that she was left handed, meaning that the fact that her right hand was out of commission wasn't an issue.

"Lead on." Said Jamie with an adorable half smile. Wait. What? Adorable? Where was all this coming from? This was SO not the time.

It was a ten minute walk back to the courtyard room Dominique shared with Lillian, a tiny Asian girl from Australia who was studying theatre. The easiest way in was through the window, thus removing the need to circle around to get to a door leading to a hallway. Of course that was when the window was open. Dominique tapped on the window, and a moment later Lillian appeared and raised her eyebrows infinitesimally at the sight of the boy behind her.

The window was opened and she was perched on the windowsill, about to swing herself in when Jamie reached out to stop her.

"Would I be able to get your number?" he asked. "You know… in case I get shingles or something." He grinned wickedly and ducked as Dominique swung a textbook at him. he held out his phone, and she keyed in her details before bidding him good evening and closing the window.

"Care to explain?" asked Lillian, who in the eighteen months she had known Victoire had never seen her so much as glance at a boy, let along give on her number.

"Vi went and got shingles, so obviously she cancelled on me, and I was in the quad contemplating the horrible implications of my turning up without a pianist when Jamie bumped in to me, I did the logical thing and tried to save the sheet music, so I ended up breaking my wrist, although I didn't really know it at the time. Anyway, I had a room booking I was about to lose, so I was planning to tough it out, practise, and then get to a hospital,"

"But he had your sheet music hostage." Lillian had a creepy propensity to see what was about to happen.

"Exactly. So it was off to campus medical, where it was Intern Day," they both shuddered, "and then onto the hospital, where I got all fixed up. I had no idea having bones set was that painful. Of course by then, Jamie had offered to fill in for Vi – he's really good – and so a quick rehearsal later, I was popping through the window."

Lillian considered the story for a moment. "I see you let Simon have his way with your cast decorations?"

"How on earth did you know that?"

"Who else carries around twenty or so differently coloured permanent markers?" Of course. All the theatre kids seemed to know each other.

"Valid. It turns out that he and Jamie went to school together, so he was able to wrangle me a piano once I was all plastered up."

"Well I noticed you'd missed dinner, so I grabbed you a sandwich."

"Might I just say that you're the best roomie ever?" Dominique had indeed missed dinner, and pain always seemed to make her hungry.

Lillian rolled her eyes. "Trust you to find some musically talented northern hottie who's just dying to go all knight-in-shining-armour on you."

"He is mightily attractive, isn't he." Conceded Dominique.

"Honey, if he was any more attractive, the sheer intensity of it would punch a hole in the universe, and reality would start leaking out."

"In the same manner as if someone were to 'share a coke' with themselves?"

"In exactly that manner. Come on. I want to finish the cast decorations." The rest of the cast was done entirely in black and silver, in an ironically gothic manner. The dichotomy was… interesting.


	3. Chapter 3

Dominique was running late.

In actuality she wasn't late per se, but she wasn't early.

And when it came to marked performances, the mantra was 'on time is late, and late is unforgivable.' Dominique was on time, and that concerned her.

Usually she arrived half an hour ahead of schedule, but the cast on her wrist was seriously hampering her movement, and as it turns out, it's damn difficult to get on a pair of stockings and a tailored dress with only one functioning hand. That having been said, of course, she looked damn good. As comfortable as she was in her constant garb of skinny jeans and black top, her aunt Gabrielle was an inordinately skilled designer. And no self respecting female opera student ever performed wearing pants. Unless they were singing a castrato part… which she wasn't.

All that aside, she had taken far longer to get dressed then planned (the invisible zipper had been a particular shit-kicker, and when she had resorted to magic, the whole dress had gone flying to rest on the ceiling) and was thus sprinting across campus, heels in hand (because a little extra height never harmed anyone), desperately hoping she was towards the end of the scheduled performances so that she would have time to get her heart rate and breathing back down before she had to sing.

Jamie, as luck would have it, was waiting outside for her, music in hand. Because rule #1 of having an accompanist was to always bring a backup score. And in the panic of needing twenty minutes to put in a pair of stockings one-handed, after the cast had shredded the same pair fie times, and had thus needed five repairs, she had forgotten the backup she always carried, it was a good start that Jamie had brought his copy.

As luck would also have it, his shoulders were just below her eye level, making them the perfect height to hold onto with her injured hand while the still functional one buckled on her standard performance shoes – a pair of five inch Mary-Janes – before she set off to one of the studios at a pace which rather surprised Jamie for its swiftness.

As it turned out, she was there with three minutes to spare, which she spent lying on the ground to speed her pulse back to resting because she was – of course – up first. This was not her week.

The performance wasn't her best, but it was definitely not her worst. That incident with the undiagnosed tonsillitis had definitely been her worst.

After an hour of performances – Both Winnie the violinist and Julian the flautist had opted to perform full concerti. Thus even though the only other performances that week were Liam the trombonist, David the double bassist and Emily the pit percussionist, who had truly outdone herself by playing an entire pit worth of percussion all by her lonesome (and a Ross Edwards piece at that)… either way, it was still a well lengthy session.

Ordinarily in such a situation, Dominique would entertain herself the same way everyone else did – by raising her eyebrows judgementally whenever anything was the slightest bit imperfect – but Jamie had clearly had some measure of experience with lengthy concerts, because he had come equipped with a notebook and pen, and lo did an entertaining conversation arise.

_So what's on now?_ They had been passing notes through all the previous pieces, and it was the final of the day.

_This is Liam, he's playing his quarterly jazz piece._

_Quarterly jazz piece?_

_He tends towards the classical, but roughly once every quarter he plays a jazz piece as an intellectual exercise. _

_And today is the day?_

_Indeed. This comes at the end of a month and a half of Vaughan Williams, so he's cleaning the pipes, so to speak._

_It is a pleasant change._

_Julian's piece did go on forever._

_I have a violent hatred of flutes, ever since each one of my sisters played it at some point._

_That's bound to scar you._

_You've no idea…_ he had a bit of a wicked grin.

After an impressive showing of what sounded like flutter tonguing, but was in fact ludicrously fast quadruple tonguing, Liam cut off, and so ended Dominique's classes for the week.

Once Dr. Smith (once, Katrina, clarinet virtuoso) had packed up and left, everyone else started packing up their instruments and Dominique changed back into flats.

"Walk me back?" asked Dominique, just as Jamie asked "Would you like to go out with me?"

They both chuckled for a moment, then at the same time said "Sure."

Eve, an oboe/cor anglais player who was in the same college as her, raised her eyebrows at the exchange and mouthed 'cute'.

Dominique rolled her eyes and headed out with Jamie.

"You know, your constantly changing height is kind of throwing me for a loop." He remarked.

Dominique's brain thought 'wait until you meet my sister's boyfriend – then talk to me about thrown for a loop'. Her mouth said "We can't all be 5'11'' like you. Some of us need a little artificial enhancement." At 5'5'', Dominique's height was serviceable, but not spectacular. Indeed she was the shortest member of her family. And the shortest member of her extended family save for her diminutive aunt Caitlin.

"You know you were fantastic."

She rolled her eyes. "I was passable. You were brilliant."

"You have a raging inferiority complex." He pointed out.

"Only on off days."

"How's your wrist feeling?" that was a decent subject change.

"Deeply bruised, but exceedingly glamorous." She showed off Lillian's handiwork.

"I'm so sorry about that." He reiterated.

"It's fine." Said Dominique, laying her functional hand on his arm. "And statistically, this means that I'll be injury free for a while. So to be honest, you've done me a favour."

"I wouldn't go that far."

"That's because you don't work by extrapolating with the law of large numbers." She said with a smile as they reached the door of her room. "I would say come in for a cup of tea, only getting performance ready with only one hand is way harder than you'd think, and I was in a massive hurry, and just getting on the stockings basically destroyed the room… and I'm rambling massively which really tends to happen if nobody stops me, because my mind just shoots off on tangents, and sometimes the tangents beget tangents of their own, and sometimes the tangents are in fact secants, and my god, I'm doing it again, you have to stop me when I get like this, otherwise I'll go on forever, and you'll just be standing there awkwardly, waiting for me to finish talking, but I never will, because I'll just get sidetracked, and why haven't you stopped me yet? This is what I mean by secant – I'm back when I was a while ago. Ugh." She turned around and hit her head repeatedly against the door in a desperate attempt to stop making an ass of herself.

Jamie twirled her around and held her out of range of flat objects. "Have a nice weekend. I'll text you." He then strode off down the corridor as she pulled out her door key and attempted to get a handle on her burning embarrassment before she came into her paternal genetics and went bright red, which when combined with the fact that she was naturally pale did not bode well for her appearance, when Jamie spun beck and called out "The rambling was actually really cute." Before pivoting back around and turning a corner, disappearing from sight. Dominique rested her head against the door and called herself as many types of idiot as she could. Then the door opened, revealing Victoire.

"You heard all of that, didn't you." Groaned Dominique, not really needing to hear the answer.

"Oh yeah." Confirmed Victoire. "The sheer extent to which I heard all of that defies description. That was an impressive monologue you were able to sustain. All that singing must be really paying off, because I don't remember ever hearing you stop for breath."

Dominique groaned. " I let my inner idiot run amuck and scared him off." She flopped onto her bed and covered her face with a pillow.

Victoire vanished the pillow. "As if. You heard him – he likes the rambling."

"And I liked that pillow."

Victoire conjured the pillow back into existence and threw it at her sister. "Get your stuff together. We're heading home. Dad and Maman are more than interested to hear the whole sordid explanation."

"It's not sordid." Dominique protested. Victoire just raised an eyebrow. "It's not!" the eyebrow stayed held aloft. "On what planet is it sordid?"

"Did somebody mention sordid?" asked Lillian as she walked in and dropped her books on her bed. "Hi Victoire."

"Hi Lillian."

"Nothing is sordid!" insisted Dominique. Victoire and Lillian just exchanged a significant look and stayed silent. Dominique rolled her eyes. "I'm off for the weekend, Lil. I'll see you on Sunday."

"Sure thing, hon." She said with a hug. "Try not to be injured by any more cute guys."

"Is no-one familiar with probability and the way in which it can be applied to the law of large numbers?"

There was a silence filled with deadpan looks, followed by a unison answer of "No."

"Phillistines." Muttered Dominique as she walked out of the room, suit case in hand, trailing her elder sister. Thirty metres on, they were in the bathrooms, from whence they disaparated to Shell Cottage.


	4. APOLOGY AND NOTICE OF NEW THINGS

Hi there guys, I realise that it has been a REALLY long time.

And for that I apologise. Uni has been hectic, I keep getting bogged down in plot bunnies, and I keep picking up new fandoms.

But mainly university has been crazy.

In March 2012, I started studying architecture. It was time consuming, it was difficult, and despite how hard I worked, I was just really bad at it. So in May 2012, I put in for a transfer to Naval Architecture, an engineering major more commonly known as Ship Design.

In June 2012, I got the transfer, and in July 2012, I commenced my study of Naval Architecture. Naval is the major with the smallest number of enrolments in the university. There are rarely more than ten students per year, which means subjects are only offered one semester per year, and so if you want to finish your degree in the advertised four years, you need to follow the course plan the university puts online, because otherwise you will lack prerequisites, and your four year degree will suddenly take six and a half. So the summer of 2012/2013 I took a math course I needed to be able to take second year math courses the next semester. And that, combined with a lot of choir, meant that I had basically no time for writing.

2013, there was all of the engineering. Because once you hit second year, the work gets harder, because you know more, so there's more to test. That summer, there was no summer course, only a hell of a lot of work. And let me tell you, when you're dealing with children for six to eight hours a day, you get home and you sleep. Because teaching sport is difficult. Because children are apathetic little scumbags. So there was no writing. AND I discovered Teen Wolf that summer, so instead of writing productively, I spent all of my time catching up on what I had missed, and having my mind filled with plot bunnies.

Now it's 2014, and reading back over my work from back when I was young and adorable, I was cringing a lot of the time. So I'm in the midst of some serious revision before I migrate my works over to AO3. My username is CynicInAFishbowl, and I'd love it if you guys kept following.

I'll keep the Fanfiction account active, but there will be an overhaul of all of my active stories.

Whilst I have all kinds of great things planned for this story, I'm directing most of my efforts to finishing Nervous Laugh (one of my other Harry Potter universe fics), at which point I'll get to this one.


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